When Will Saudi Authorities Stop Abusing Abdul Rahman Al-Sadhan?
Five years have been passed since the arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance of the Saudi aid worker and human rights defender, Abdul Rahman Al-Sadhan.
Abdul Rahman Al-Sadhan was detained by Saudi Arabia in 12 March 2018 at the Red Crescent Society’s office in Riyadh. The Saudi authorities denied his arrest for a whole month before confirming his detention.
However, Al-Sadhan was denied any family contact or access to a lawyer during his detention.
He remained in detention for three years without charge or trial in violation of the Saudi law of due process.
In October 2021, an appeals court in Saudi Arabia upheld a lengthy prison sentence for the aid worker, sentenced in April 2021 to 20 years in jail by a counter-terrorism court in Riyadh.
During his detention, he was only allowed to contact his family in two times, the first was after 23 months of his detention and the second was after more than three years of his detention.
Abd al-Rahman was denied to have a lawyer to represent him or to know his charges. Four months after the court verdict was upheld in October, Abd al-Rahman disappeared again, while no news was revealed about his fate till time of writing.
Well-informed sources affirmed that he was detained after his anonymous Twitter account was hacked. Al-Sadhan was running a satirical Twitter account criticising the Saudi regime’s policies.
In detention, Al-Sadhan was subjected to several human rights violations including enforced disappearance, torture, forced confession, medical negligence, and other forms of cruel ill-treatment.
In this regard, Together for Justice calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Al-Sadhan and to stop all the human rights violations he is subjected to.
It also calls on the international community to take immediate actions to put pressure on the Saudi regime to reveal Abdul Rahman Al-Sadhan’s fate, and to improve the human rights situation in the Kingdom.
